


The Warmth Found in the Stars

by dunk_on_em (the_author_at_221B)



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Mourns the Stars, Crying, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Stars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 11:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19440862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_author_at_221B/pseuds/dunk_on_em
Summary: Every so often, if the night was fading into the early hours of the day, and if Aziraphale was especially gentle, Crowley would talk about his life before the fall.His voice would be quiet, timid. He wouldn’t pick his eyes up off of the floor. He also wouldn’t talk about whether or not he was happy in heaven, or about the acts that led up to the actual falling.But he would talk about his hand in creation.





	The Warmth Found in the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Hello I cried while writing this I hope you enjoy.
> 
> The poem is called Lunar Baedeker by Mina Loy.

_Delirious Avenues_   
_lit_   
_with the chandelier souls_   
_of infusoria_   
_from Pharoah’s tombstones_

Every so often, if the night was fading into the early hours of the day, and if Aziraphale was especially gentle, Crowley would talk about his life before the fall. His existence upstairs, before he was sent spiraling downwards. His voice would be quiet, timid. He wouldn’t pick his eyes up off of the floor. He also wouldn’t talk about whether or not he was happy in heaven, or about the acts that led up to the _actual_ falling. Any questions about those two topics would shut him down completely. Really, any questions at all would do that, unless they were worded very, very carefully.

But if Aziraphale was quiet (as he so often was), as the sun began to creep over the horizon, Crowley would begin to talk.

He would talk about his hand in creation. He was one of the chosen few angels to help create the stars beyond this Earth.

_white-light district  
of lunar lusts_

And even though his eyes were fixed firmly on the ground, Aziraphale could see Crowley’s eyes begin to light up as he described how it felt to shape whole planets, to gather the elements of the universe and the heat of his soul in his palms, to mix and press and pull them together until they became the stars the humans look up towards today.

He talked of Alpha Centurai most of all.

“It has three suns.” Crowley whispered one night, staring at the worn carpet of Aziraphale’s bookshop. “One sun worked out so well for this one, I figured that three could only make everything better.”

“Were you right?”

“I was.”

_Stellectric signs_   
_“Wing shows on Starway”_   
_“Zodiac carrousel”_

One particular morning, when Crowley had not yet sobered up, he talked about the stars and he cried.

“I poured _myself_ into their creation. Each and every one. I left bits of my own soul behind in each cloud of star dust.” He took a breath, tears streaming down his cheeks as he wept. He was sitting on one end of Aziraphale’s couch, his hands turned upwards in his lap. His glasses were gone, and he was looking at his hands as if they were holding something that Aziraphale couldn’t see. The angel was sitting on the opposite end of the couch. He wanted to be closer, but he was afraid of what would happen if he came near.

“But when I was up there, it was _okay_. I could see them. I could feel their warmth in my hands, I could feel them live.”

“We can go there, if you’d like,” Aziraphale whispered into the early morning light. “We can visit them again.”

“It’s not the _same_ ,” Crowley all but howled, sounding very much like the wounded creature that he was. “Up there, visiting them was like coming _home_. Now-,” he choked on his own words. “It’s like I’m a stranger to them. They don’t know who I am.” With that, he fell into himself, weeping bitterly.

The angel took a steadying breath and stood up. He walked over to Crowley slowly, giving the demon plenty of time to tell him to leave. No protest came.

Aziraphale sank to his knees quietly, wrapping his arms around Crowley’s legs. He rested his head on Crowley’s knees, murmuring soft nothings gently. The demon didn’t move, but instead wept harder. Aziraphale reached up with one hand to gently brush away the stars that fell from Crowley’s eyes.

Crowley didn’t speak for the rest of the night. 

_Cyclones_   
_of ecstatic dust_   
_and ashes whirl_   
_crusaders_   
_from hallucinatory citadels_   
_of shattered glass_   
_into evacuate craters_

On a different morning, Crowley spoke of Saturn’s rings.

“Upstairs wasn’t overly fond of them at first, you know. Said it was too overly complicated, rings of ice and stone and what not. I don’t think She saw the point.”

“The point?” Aziraphale prompted. Crowley had his head in the angel’s lap, and he was slowly carding his fingers through his hair.

“Doesn’t have to be a point.” Crowley smiled, halfway asleep. “They were beautiful.”

Aziraphale smiled back, his heart melting like an ice ring that was thrown into the sun.

Distantly, a clock chimed five times.

“Why do you only speak of these things in the morning?” Aziraphale murmured, pulling the demon closer. “It’s only when the sun comes up that you want to talk.”

The smile disappeared from Crowley’s face. Aziraphale’s heart clenched. He had pushed too far, yet again.

“I am so sorry, my dear, I didn’t mean to-”

“I don’t want to see them.”

Crowley turned his whole body, pressing his face into the softness of Aziraphale’s middle.

“I don’t ever want to see them again.”

_A flock of dreams  
browse on Necropolis_

_From the shores_  
_of oval oceans_  
 _in the oxidized Orient_

“You should be proud, you know.” Aziraphale held tightly to Crowley’s hand. They were walking back to the bookshop, and the night was late. The stars were shining brightly overhead, twinkling like Christmas lights. The moon was full, and the way it lit up Crowley’s hair was just about _remarkable_.

“Pride is a sin,” Crowley shot back, deadpan. His eyes were fixed firmly on the sidewalk, never once glancing upwards. Aziraphale knew better than to ask why. 

“Not when it comes to something like this, my dear.” He pressed a gentle kiss onto Crowley’s hand. “Never for something like this.”

_Onyx-eyed Odalisques_   
_and ornithologists_   
_observe_   
_the flight_   
_of Eros obsolete_

_And “Immortality”_   
_mildews …_   
_in the museums of the moon_

An angel and a demon lie twisted together in their bedroom sheets. The bedroom window is open, and starlight is shining through. They are breathless, laughing, borderline _giddy_. Aziraphale pulls Crowley in once more, kissing his cheekbones, his nose, his forehead, anything that he can reach. Crowley scrunches up his face, making Aziraphale laugh again.

“I love you,” he whispers, in the darkness of the night.

Crowley gazes into his angel’s eyes, and he sees the stars reflected back.

“I love you too,” and his heart begins to heal.

_Pocked with personification_  
_the fossil virgin of the skies  
_ _waxes and wanes_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so, so much for reading! Your comments mean the world to me, and they encourage me so much!  
> This was prompted by loudest-cricket on my tumblr - dunk-on-em-ao3.tumblr.com 
> 
> Feel to leave me a prompt!
> 
> Thank you again for reading!


End file.
